It has been a whole year since the release of the first season of Fallout, which I enjoyed a great deal. I never played the game, so I found myself immersed in the show’s world-building – the low-key insanity of the Vault, the indoctrination and rigid structures of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the no-man’s-land aspect of the rest of the world – and how the three main characters, Lucy (Ella Purnell), Maximus (Aaron Moten), and the bounty hunter, The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) lead us into an exploration of this post-apocalyptic narrative. It was kooky and offbeat, but it also showed us a civilization frayed at the edges, which, in many ways, sort of mirrors the fraying of our modern-day society as well.
Surprisingly, it has only been a year, because after watching the first three episodes of the show, even with the recap, I’ve forgotten a lot of things already. Luckily, each episode begins with a recap that features scenes from the previous season, but I still feel somewhat disconnected again from the characters. The major shake-up in Lucy’s life – learning about her father (Kyle MacLachlan) and his involvement in the destruction of Shady Sands – pushes her to team up with The Ghoul to track him and find out the truth about his actions.
Meanwhile, Maximus, now heralded as a hero for killing the New California Republic commander Lee Moldaver (even though he didn’t), returns to the Steel Brotherhood as a true knight and hero, only to discover they may be heading into war.
Lucy and The Ghoul, by all means, should make an interesting pair, as they represent two sides of this world. Lucy is the idealistic one, raised innocently with a clear moral center as she was raised in the safety confines of the Vault. The Ghoul, whose real name is Cooper Howard, has seen the worst of it. On paper, their interactions should make an interesting match, but instead Lucy’s insistence of staying true to her values feels out of sync with everything she has seen in the previous season. She’s doubling down on her values when a person as smart as her, should be reassessing the situation considering what she has discovered about her father and what she has already experienced. While Purnell continues to deliver a wonderfully committed performance, the character feels stagnant and out of place as we move forward into the world of Fallout.
The first two episodes, however, switch into flashbacks of life before the cataclysm that changed everything, showing Cooper Howard struggling to make sense of his own wife’s involvement with Vault-Tec and witnessing the imminent nuclear destruction firsthand. This gives Goggins a lot of range to play with – the tortured Ghoul with an axe to grind and the empathetic Cooper, a father who has a daughter to save. Goggins does a wonderful job of layering his performance across both timelines. It’s the same person, yet one is full of dread, love, and hope while the other is indifferent, callous, and ready to kill.
The Maximus storyline is interesting as it explores the inner workings of the Brotherhood of Steel. Aaron Moten does a splendid job of portraying the conflict that comes to Maximus as he finds the respect and adoration he has always wanted, being a revered knight of the Brotherhood but also remembering the bond of friendship he has formed with Lucy.
This is tested even more as the Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) politicizes the Brotherhood and seeks to expand its power. This storyline deals with the politics of the world above, the government system, and the broader networks at play.
Through Maximus’s eyes, it is interesting to watch, as he, in his own way, is an innocent as well, much like Lucy. These challenges are poised to shake him to the core.
The second season has a rougher pace than the first. Most of the world-building was already established in season one, so the first three episodes have to both remind us what happened while pushing the individual stories further along. It doesn’t help that we keep returning to the past to show how the nuclear fallout started in the first place, as if it is leading to something bigger for its finale. I’m hoping the pacing picks up and that Lucy begins to evolve into someone more suited for the world, because it’s always difficult to root for characters in a post-apocalyptic world who doesn’t adapt.
The effects are incredible, and the tone remains flippant and kooky, which is much appreciated. There’s enough action to keep the story from getting too slow. I think Fallout Season 2 may be starting off slow, but once it picks up the pace and leans on its strengths, as it did in the first season, it will be just as enjoyable as the first. Especially since the third season has already been greenlit. This is a show you know is gonna be there next year.
My Rating:
Catch all the action, kooky twists, and post-apocalyptic drama of Fallout Season 2, now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.
